


The Deputy Mayor

by Lindelea



Series: This and That [1]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Fourth Age, Gen, Post-Quest of the Ring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:42:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22607203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lindelea/pseuds/Lindelea
Summary: Frodo Baggins, Deputy Mayor, has a chance to show his quality.
Series: This and That [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1626700
Kudos: 7





	The Deputy Mayor

**Author's Note:**

> Some text taken from “The Grey Havens” from _The Return of the King_ by J.R.R. Tolkien

‘The next case is waiting outside, Mr. Mayor, sir.’ 

Frodo suppressed a sigh. No matter how many times he’d told old Nibson to call him “Frodo”, the hobbit insisted on addressing him not only by the honorific but also the title he’d temporarily assumed, at least until old Mayor Will Whitfoot was ready to return to the duties of his office. Well, sort of the title he’d assumed. ‘Deputy Mayor,’ he said, with a sinking feeling that it made not a whit of difference at all. 

‘Yessir, Mr. Mayor, sir,’ Nibson said obligingly. 

‘Send him in,’ Frodo said, surrendering the battle for the moment. 

Nibson nodded and looked over his shoulder, then opened the door wider to usher in the next visitor. 

Visitor? 

Frodo rose from his desk with a sudden, unfeigned smile. ‘Sam!’ he said in delight, moving to greet the faithful hobbit, throwing his arms about Sam’s shoulders for a quick embrace and releasing him as quickly to look him up and down. He seemed little the worse for wear, despite the stories that had trickled back to the Mayor’s office in his absence. Not only had Sam been travelling over the entirety of the Shire, planting saplings to replace specially beautiful or beloved trees that had fallen to Sharkey’s ruffians, but he’d led the hobbits of The Yale in routing out a band of ruffians who thought they’d sneak back into the Shire to regain some of the more valuable possessions they’d gathered and hidden before the Scouring happened. By the time the Thain's hastily mustered archers had arrived, the battle was done, the ruffians were dead or sitting securely bound, ready for the Muster to escort them out of the Shire, and the victors were going over the spoils, doing their best to identify the owners of the jewellery and silver cups and utensils and other family heirlooms so that they might be rightfully restored to their proper places. But all the Deputy Mayor said now was, ‘You’re back!’ 

‘Yes, Mr. Frodo,’ Samwise said. From the freshness of his clothing and the still-damp hair, Frodo knew he’d taken time to bathe away the dust of the road before coming to give his report on his latest travels. 

But Sam was drawing away, making for the door as if to leave again. 

As Frodo opened his mouth to protest, the gardener reached the doorway and spoke to someone outside. ‘Come along, lad. The Mayor’s hardly going to take a bite of you.’ 

‘And if I did, ‘twouldn’t matter,’ Frodo added with a smile for the not-yet-visible youngster. ‘They drew all my teeth, years ago.’ 

Sam had reached one arm out, and in the next moment, he was tugging gently. Frodo was reminded of a long-ago fishing expedition, teaching Merry how to pull gently at a nibble on the hook, so as not to frighten the fish away before the hook was set. ‘Come, lad,’ the gardener said again, more softly. 

A slight figure came into view, perhaps shorter than the average hobbit, and more slender – though such could be explained by the short rations the Shirefolk had lived under during the time of the Troubles. Even so, Frodo quickly perceived that this was a mere stripling youth. A tween, at best. The all-purpose appellation ‘lad’ was perfectly fitting in this case. His clothing, though clean, was shabby and much-mended. The ragged nails on his hands, though well-scrubbed, bore evidence that this hobbit was not afraid of difficult, dirty tasks. He pulled his cap from his head in a show of respect and stood, twisting it in his hands. His curly hair, dampened and brushed into some sort of subjection, sprang free and stood about his head in defiance of any and all restraint, an exclamation point of sorts. And his face was pale, his expression stiff... his eyes were wide and wary. 

Instinctively Frodo dropped his voice. He put out a hand to the youthful visitor, and hesitating, the lad took it. Frodo moved slowly backward into the room, drawing the lad after him. ‘Come in,’ he said kindly. ‘And... Welcome.’ 

The young hobbit entered the inner office, caught between Frodo’s quiet pull and Samwise’s subtle push. Somehow between them, they got him to one of the visitors’ chairs and sat him down. 

Frodo patted the thin shoulder and raised his voice. Not too loud. He might startle this half-tamed creature into flight. ‘Nibson! A spot of tea, if you please.’ 

‘Certainly, Mr. Mayor, sir,’ came the inevitable answer. 

Frodo left Samwise standing beside the lad’s chair and made his way around the desk to sit down. 

As soon as he was seated, the lad sprang to his feet, standing at attention. 

‘Sit, lad,’ Frodo said. 

‘Yessir, Mr. Mayor, sir,’ the young hobbit said, while continuing to stand. 

Frodo would have sighed, except he’d seen the young hobbit’s trembling. ‘Are you in some sort of trouble, lad?’ He looked to Samwise. ‘Is he, Sam?’ 

‘No,’ the lad gulped. 

‘Yes,’ Sam said quietly, and then he shook his head. ‘Beggin’ your pardon, Mr. Frodo, he’s no trouble-maker, not this lad, but he’s got some troubles that I thought you might be able to help him with.’ He laid a large, work-worn hand on the tween’s shoulder and urged the visitor back down to a sitting position. Taking the other chair for himself, he sat down and seemed to abandon the topic at hand as he launched into a description of tree-planting in the Eastfarthing. 

At last Nibson entered, bearing a tea tray with a cosied pot and three cups. ‘Tea, Mr. Mayor, sir,’ he announced. He set the tray down upon the desk and seemed about to pour out when Sam, having jumped up from his chair, intercepted him. 

‘Thank you, Nibson,’ Frodo said. ‘Why don’t you go and have a cup yourself with Mistress Grizzlewold?’ 

‘If you’re sure and certain, Mr.—’ 

‘I won’t be needing anything for a time,’ Frodo said, interrupting the inevitable honorific. ‘Why, we’ve everything we need! Biscuits, even! And teatime still an hour or so off...’ 

‘There’ll be scones for tea,’ Nibson confided, ‘but they weren’t quite out of the oven just now...’ 

‘Well, you go on down and take some refreshment yourself,’ Samwise said firmly, and having fixed Frodo’s cup to his master’s taste, he handed it to Frodo, who sipped gratefully at the hot, reviving beverage. He put down the pot, and somehow, without Nibson quite realizing how neatly he’d been handled, the Mayor’s assistant had been escorted out of the inner office, through the outer office, and was heading towards the smell of baking scones wafting from the little kitchen that served the needs of the hobbits working at the Town Hole to restore order and peace to the Shire. 

Samwise returned, leaving the door a handspan ajar. A closed door invited listening, as it were. A door that remained partly open was of little interest. 

In Sam’s absence, Frodo had poured out two more cups. One lump sufficed for Samwise these days, and the merest hint of milk; the hobbits had grown used to tea without any sweetening or milk over their long travels, and as their supplies dwindled, they’d lingered over their mugs of hot, plain tea – when they could have a fire, that is – and the taste of home. 

Looking at the hollow-eyed tween, however, the Deputy Mayor found himself sweetening and creaming the last cup of tea with a reckless hand. He told himself that it wouldn’t be a problem; hadn’t another storehouse of the ruffians’ gatherings been found recently? Most of the supplies had been shared out to hobbit families in the area, but he knew that Nibson had made sure the Town Hole received enough supplies that business might be suitably conducted with tea and biscuits (and even scones) for visitors. 

The two older hobbits urged the tween to drink up whilst his tea was still hot, and between them, they pressed him to devour a troll’s share of the biscuits, all the time chatting of inconsequentialities. At last, Frodo, pouring out another cup of tea for each of them as he cheerily told of the latest discovery of a ruffian storehole, watched Sam rise from his seat and move silently to the doorway, peer to one side and then the other, nod to himself in satisfaction, and return to his chair. 

‘Well, then,’ Frodo said, and he nodded meaningfully to the tween. ‘Go on, lad. That tea’s not going to drink itself.’ 

‘Nosir,’ the tween murmured and obediently lifted the cup to his lips. 

‘Well then,’ Sam said, taking his cue. ‘This is Sandy.’ 

Frodo nodded but did not rise from his chair as he rightly suspected the tween would jump to his feet as well, spilling the sweet, milky tea that would do more good inside himself than on the carpet. ‘At your service, and your family’s,’ he said. 

‘Well, that’s what I brought him here to talk about,’ Sam said. 

Frodo studied the plain, honest face he knew so well, finding a troubled look in the hobbit’s clear gaze. ‘Go on,’ he encouraged. 

‘Sandy here, his dad Bramble was a jobbing gardener,’ Sam said. ‘You might not remember him – he came around Bag End twice in the year, for the digging in the Spring and the fruit-picking in the Old Orchard, come harvest-time.’ 

Frodo nodded again without comment. Truth be told, Spring and Harvest were two times of the year when Bilbo had been at his most restless, taking Frodo with him for a “ramble” as he called it. They’d walked and camped the length and breadth of the Shire, halfway to the edges of the world, or so it had seemed to Frodo in those innocent times. After Bilbo had left Bag End for the last time, Frodo had kept up the wandering tradition. Thus, he’d never met the itinerant hobbits who’d come to Bag End to help Sam and his Gaffer with the heavier seasonal work, though he’d taken over the task of providing the Gaffer the coins to pay them after Bilbo’s departure. But Sam was still speaking. 

‘...pitchfork in his hand,’ Sam said. ‘He’d been digging old Proudfoot’s taters when the call went out to the hobbits of Bywater, that the time had come to throw the ruffians out, lock, stock and barrel.’ He finished on a sigh. ‘And so he fell at Bywater.’ 

Frodo’s breath stilled as he remembered that dreadful, bloody day, yells and shrieks and terrible cries, the thud of viciously wielded clubs, the _thrum_ of Tookish bowstrings... He closed his eyes and bowed his head, and Sam fell silent. 

The only sound in the room for long minutes was the ticking of the dwarf-made clock on the mantel, and the crackle of the little fire on the hearth. 

When the Deputy Mayor opened his eyes and raised his head again, he saw the tween staring straight ahead, tear-filled eyes fixed on the wall behind Frodo, though he sat as still as a statue and did not give in to weeping. The lad might have been a statue, if not for the tears and the white-knuckled hands gripping the arms of the visitor’s chair. ‘I see,’ he said quietly. 

Sam swallowed hard, tears standing in his own eyes. He raised a hand to wipe at his face, then moved to place his hand on the tween’s arm, giving the merest squeeze. ‘Sandy, here,’ he said. ‘He’s the eldest of nine.’ His lips twitched in what might have been a rueful smile. ‘Hard-working lad, to be sure. His mum’s been taking in washing, and his sisters all working with her, but the hobbits in Bywater don’t have much coin to spare for such, and even many of the gentry are doing their own washing these days...’ 

Frodo waited. 

The youth broke the silence. ‘I can work,’ he said, blinking away the tears in his eyes and lifting his chin defiantly. ‘I’m a good, hard worker.’ 

‘That you are, lad, that you are,’ Sam said, patting the tween’s arm. But his eyes, meeting Frodo’s, were troubled. 

Frodo steepled his hands, and his two visitors were quiet again as he surveyed the tween and considered. Doughty though he might be, Sandy was small for a hobbit – and Frodo suspected that, even well-fed, the tween would be on the slighter side. He rather reminded Frodo of Pippin, before they’d started out on the Quest. At the thought, his missing finger throbbed, and he absently rubbed at his injured hand. 

Sam opened his mouth as if to speak, and subsided as quickly, though he gave the tween’s arm another pat as if seeking to provide comfort where he might. 

_Too small, and too slight, for such a great burden,_ Frodo was thinking. He might have said the same of Pippin, come to think of it, but his young cousin had made up for his lack of stature in determination and courage, had risen to great heights, not only the literal result of the Ent draught, but more. 

Still, he had some power for good in this lad’s life, he thought. ‘So you’ve been working to help support your widowed mother and your sisters,’ he said. 

‘I have,’ the youth said sturdily. 

Frodo looked to Sam, and he caught the small dip of Sam’s chin. ‘But digging ditches and trenching gardens don’t pay well enough in these times, I should think,’ Frodo said. ‘If hobbits lack the coin to send out their washing, I’d imagine quite a few have been digging their own gardens as well.’ And moving heavy soil, in any event, seemed too heavy a task for those narrow shoulders. 

‘Well,’ he added. ‘I happen to be travelling to the Great Smials tomorrow, for Pervinca’s birthday.’ He looked at the tween from head to foot again. ‘I can put in a good word with the Thain for him. I’m sure he could find him a place at the Smials.’ 

He returned to meet Sam’s penetrating gaze and nodded slightly in reassurance. _Not a ditch-digger, or a gardener, or a stable worker, my faithful Sam, but a job in the Smials proper, with proper feeding, and warm clothing, and tasks more suited to his abilities._ ‘They’re always looking for good, hard workers there, in the kitchens, or polishing the brass.’ He grinned suddenly, remembering one of Bilbo’s jests. ‘There’s an awful lot of brass to be polished at the Smials.’ 

He was gladdened to see Sam relax subtly. ‘So then, Sam,’ he said in dismissal. ‘Take him to the Inn, will you? Buy him a good meal and a bed, and I’ll take him with me in the morning.’ 

The tween was blinking now, not because of threatened tears, but in complete astonishment. ‘A – a place?’ he echoed. ‘I’m to have a place – in one of the Great Holes?’ He rose suddenly, rushed forward, and seized Frodo’s hand in his, holding it firmly enough that the Deputy Mayor had to suppress a wince – and even so, Frodo saw Sam start forward from his chair – and as quickly adjusting his grip to one that was soft, gentle, yet conveyed the youth’s fervent hope and joy. 

‘That you are, lad,’ Frodo said with a smile. ‘That you are. I’ll have Thain Paladin arrange to send your wages home to your mother.’ 

‘Thank you, sir, O thank you!’ the lad said tearfully, but these were tears of joy and profound relief. 

‘I’m sure you’ll make good,’ Frodo said, suffering his hand to be prisoned in the tween’s grasp until the young hobbit came to himself and stepped back, standing to his full height, determined and resolute. 

‘That I will, sir – Mr. Mayor, sir!’ came the firm answer. 

Sam nodded to Frodo, his own eyes shining his appreciation, took the tween’s arm, and murmured in his ear, and with a backward glance of gratitude, the youth allowed himself to be led from the room. 

Frodo sighed. Perhaps being Deputy Mayor was not such a trial, after all. 


End file.
